Venture Tuesday: The Story Behind the Cutlet Co.,

Cutlet Co, a T-shirt company, was started by three young women, Sharanya Ramesh, Divya Jaising and Kripa Jaising, who were ready to go all out and try something new, something different.

Cutlet Co. has simple, spunky, and colourful t-shirts

Three women who are really into cutlets (yes, the eatable) decided to start a business of their own making hand painted T shirts. Why? Because they were tired of working for the corporate sector and wanted to do something fun and exciting. Sharanya who is 21, Kripa is 22, and Divya who is 26 are all alumnus of Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. Sharanya and Kripa were batch mates in their Bachelors program for Mass communication and Communicative English. After all of them worked for various film productions houses for a year or so, they decided to call the quits, and begin Cutlet Co.

“The idea for Cutlet Co., came about when we coincidently quit our jobs at the same time to do something fun. We wanted to use our creativity, work on something to start off. We hand painted the t-shirts instead of printing them and the kind of printed ones you have now look ugly, or too bold. The whole thing was extremely impromptu and we wanted to have fun with something. Besides all three of us were tired of working for a co. and we wanted to get self employed” said Divya. The girls said that they were very lucky when they started out with the venture. “We have some people we know in the garment industry. We had a contact in Tiripur where they make garments; we checked the factory out, saw the process of screen printing wherein we basically learned the basics of t-shirt making. We took things ahead from there, and made orders for the t-shirts according to our specifications” added the girls.

“I think you need to make good friends in life if you want to start a t-shirt company” Divya Jaising

Cutlet Co. became a reality December 1st week, and they’ve sold about 70- 80 t-shirts so far. Most of the marketing is done online, through word of mouth and through Facebook. “We’ve got people calling us and asking about the t-shirts, they send e-mails. Our first public sale was at Cul-Ah, the annual Mount Carmel cultural Fest. Our motifs have a lot of colour on them and we sit and ideate together. Saranya and Kripa do the illustration work and we screen print the t-shirts at home. We use fabric paints on the clothes, and the screen

printing does not take too long. But the hand painting takes all the time on an average two hours per t-shirt. Basically we can do about 70 t-shirts a week” said Divya.

The t-shirts are priced at Rs. 250- 450 depending on the design and the work involved. “Our friends are awesome, and I think you need to make good friends in life if you want to start a t-shirt company. We wanted to do Indian motifs to begin with and I want something on my t-shirt that will remind me of my school, things that we identify with on a day to day basis, and things that are a part of our everyday life. If you look at the motif with taxis on them, that identifies people from Mumbai in taxis. See, Cutlet Co. is something that is different, spunky, fun and colourful. People from different parts of the world have gotten in touch with us to buy the t-shirts” they said.

The girls at Cutlet Co. belong to a breed of designers who want their designs to speak louder than them.

“Hopefully we should come out with new designs this time by the end of next week, and we are planning to check out the Goa flea market. Our family has been very supportive of what we do. We’ve stayed in each others houses, and we use the spaces for all our work. House space for all the work and Facebook has been great help. I think Cutlet Co. is different and it defines us at some level” said Divya.